2nd Prison Worker Is Charged as Search for Escaped Killers in New York Continues

Gene Palmer, second from right, a corrections officer who is on administrative leave, being escorted to a court appearance in the Town of Plattsburgh, N.Y.Credit
Keshia Clukey/Times Union

CADYVILLE, N.Y. — A corrections officer recently placed on administrative leave after the escape of two convicted killers from a maximum-security prison in northern New York has been arrested, the State Police said Wednesday night.

Gene Palmer, the officer, has been charged with promoting prison contraband, tampering with physical evidence and official misconduct.

Mr. Palmer was recently placed on leave after the escape of Richard W. Matt and David Sweat from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y., in early June. CNN reported the arrest on Wednesday evening.

Mr. Palmer is the second employee of the prison to be charged in connection with the escape.

Andrew D. Brockway, Mr. Palmer’s lawyer, told reporters after his client’s arrest that Mr. Palmer had been cooperating with investigators and had no knowledge of the contraband that was smuggled into the prison. Mr. Palmer, he said, plans to plead not guilty. (Read the criminal complaint.)

Photo

In Bellmont, N.Y., officials were searching for the two men who escaped from a New York prison.Credit
Scott Olson/Getty Images

On June 12, officials charged Joyce E. Mitchell, 51, a supervisor in the prison’s tailor shop, after she was accused of smuggling hacksaw blades to the inmates in a package of hamburger meat destined for the prison staff’s lunch. Mr. Palmer brought the meat into the cellblock without placing it through a metal detector, the officials said.

The escape has raised serious questions about security at the prison. In the days after the escape, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo ordered the state inspector general, Catherine Leahy Scott, to investigate all aspects of the inmates’ escape.

Mr. Palmer’s arrest came as law enforcement officers searched 75 square miles of densely forested terrain on Wednesday in pursuit of the escaped murderers. The New York State Police said investigators were working on the assumption that the pair had a firearm.

The inmates, who the police believe were at a hunting cabin near Owls Head, N.Y., around 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, would most likely have found weapons there, Maj. Charles E. Guess said at a news conference on Wednesday.

The cabin contained items with DNA matching that of the two killers, Mr. Matt, who turns 49 on Thursday, and Mr. Sweat, 35, and Major Guess said a man arriving there reported seeing “someone fleeing into the woods.”

Investigators had no conclusive evidence that the inmates took a shotgun from the cabin but were operating as if they were armed, in part because almost every hunting cabin in the North Country had at least one weapon, Major Guess said.

“They put an inordinate amount of weapons and ammunition and other tools in these shared seasonal hunting camps and cabins,” he said, adding that an investigation showed that the people who used the camp did not keep an inventory of their firearms. “They can’t tell us what is missing and what is not,” he said.

In an interview on Wednesday, Andrew J. Wylie, the Clinton County district attorney, said that a bloody sock was found at the scene. The blood has led to speculation that one of the escapees is injured, but Major Guess warned against drawing conclusions.

Video

Official on the New York Manhunt

Maj. Charles E. Guess of the New York State Police discussed reports of a missing shotgun on Wednesday, saying there is no “confirmatory evidence,” as the manhunt expands for the two missing convicts.

Unimpeded by injury or thick brush, the inmates could most likely cover about 10 miles a day on a trail for all-terrain vehicles or another clear path. To keep up that pace in the wet forest that blankets the region would be much more difficult, as the searchers themselves have discovered.

“The distance you can see ahead of you is sometimes only a few feet or less,” Capt. John Streiff, a forest ranger, said at the news conference. He said that rain, biting insects and uneven terrain were frustrating search efforts, but also noted that the unforgiving terrain was the very reason the Clinton Correctional Facility was built in Dannemora.

In the absence of any confirmed sightings, Major Guess said, more than 1,000 law enforcement officers from federal and state agencies have been working through the more than 2,200 tips that have come in, and are focusing on Franklin County.

“Bottom line is we don’t want them to have a restful, peaceful night putting their head on any pillow,” he said. “What you are seeing here is the face of relentless pursuit, and we are going to be relentless until we capture these people.”

Correction: July 1, 2015
Because of an editing error, a picture credit in some editions on Thursday with an article about the arrest of a corrections officer over his role in two inmates’ escape from the Clinton Correctional Facility misidentified the photographer. The picture, of a line of law enforcement officials marching through a field, was taken by Scott Olson/Getty Images, not by Nancie Battaglia for The New York Times.

Susanne Craig reported from Cadyville, and William K. Rashbaum from New York. Benjamin Mueller and Michael Winerip contributed reporting from New York.

A version of this article appears in print on June 25, 2015, on Page A21 of the New York edition with the headline: A Second Prison Worker Is Charged as the Search for 2 Escapees Continues. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe